


sisters

by gotham_ruaidh



Series: Gotham Writes for Imagine Claire & Jamie [70]
Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-30 23:13:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12119328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gotham_ruaidh/pseuds/gotham_ruaidh
Summary: Imagine Claire and Jamie recalling the terrible duel in Paris, and how it continues to affect their lives more than 35 years later. Set in a putative Book 9 universe.





	sisters

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted at [Imagine Claire & Jamie](https://imagineclaireandjamie.tumblr.com/post/165333465773/hi-lovelies-youre-the-best-3-im-currently) on tumblr

Claire pursed her lips, thinking.

Then returned her gaze to the neatly wrapped parcels of twigs, powders, and dried leaves evenly spaced on the tabletop Jamie had just finished with Roger’s help.

She would need more shelves in this new surgery, especially while Mandy and Fanny had to bed down in there at night while Roger and Brianna’s own cabin was built. The girls needed space for their sparse belongings – and Claire had the luxury of two bare walls to dream about.

Slowly but surely she was adding to her stores. Her basket – cleverly divided into sections with bits of old wood – had made do since they’d returned to the Ridge, but now that Jamie and Ian were putting the finishing touches on the new Big House, they could focus on the non-essentials (as in, anything not directly related to ensuring they stayed warm and dry and insulated from the wind). So…

“Sassenach?”

Jamie’s tall shadow loomed behind the curtain in the doorway – for they had yet to install proper doors on the first floor of the new house – and gently he pulled back the cheery scrap of calico.

She hadn’t seen him since breakfast – and her day was immediately better.

“Found these.” He stepped toward her, standing on the other side of the table, gently laying down a handful of distinctive orange tubers.

“Bloodroot!” Eagerly she scraped at one root with her thumbnail, yielding the thick red sap that gave the plant its name. “Where did you find this?”

He met her smiling eyes, and the corners of his lips turned upward, clearly pleased. “Ach, just clearing out some rocks and I saw the flowers. I minded that one time – before – we were out in the woods and you pointed it out to me. A pretty flower, but a deadly root, aye?”

“Yes – we’ve got to be careful, it’s poisonous if eaten. But it’s a fantastic emetic – and with all the children around now, we’re bound to need it sometime.”

Jamie’s four-fingered hand slid across the table – careful to not disturb any of her packets – and rested comfortably on her forearm. “I should be worrit if ye decide to use it on *me* one of these days, aye?”

She smiled, shaking her head, expecting him to steal a quick kiss and go.

But instead his hand slid down her arm, the pad of his thumb worrying the veins and tendons on the inside of her wrist. Eyes downcast.

She slowly counted to ten.

“What’s on your mind?”

His brow furrowed – the lines deeper than they had ever been. So much weight he had borne on his shoulders in the months since they’d returned to the Ridge – the need to call back his scattered flock, rebuild their livelihood, oversee plantings, construct the new house, re-learn the tangled web of relationships that sustained the Ridge and its neighboring communities. Tempered of course by the joy of wee Oggy – then of Brianna and Roger and Jem and Mandy – and even William, when he had visited during the previous month.

It was a lot. Not that he’d ever admit as much to anyone – except her, of course.

“I was clearing the creek of some stones when I found the bloodroot.” His right hand still played with her left hand, his left hand idly tracing several of the packets. “Thought Brianna and the weans should have a proper stone hearth in their new house. So I was down in the creek and she and Frances didna see me.”

Fanny had blossomed in the months since she’d come to the Ridge. Free now to become her own person, and to enjoy whatever childhood she had left.

And she had developed a special bond with Brianna, to everyone’s surprise. Perhaps it was because Brianna reminded her so much of William – in looks, in mannerisms, in the way that they gave her respect. But Claire suspected that it was also because Bree filled the void in Fanny’s life when Jane was taken away from her – and Bree clearly relished the novelty of having a younger sister.

“What were they talking about?”

“I didna realize they were there at first. But then I caught William’s name – Frances was talking about him.”

A soft afternoon breeze fluttered through the open window – with real glass, a luxury that felt almost decadent – stirring several of the lighter packets on the table.

“How he had saved her. After Jane – after she died. And how she had been so…terrified of what would happen to her. Because she thought she was only good for one thing.”

Claire squeezed his fingers. “Jamie – ”

Now his voice rose in pitch, his eyes far, far away. “She told Bree that one time, she walked into a room and saw a man…taking Jane from behind. And she was worrit the man would then do it to her. *A Dhia,* Claire. I – ”

“Sshh, Jamie. I – ”

“Damn it, Claire. She came so close. So, so close.”

Quickly Claire walked around the table to stand right in front of her husband, hands resting on his elbows.

“But it didn’t happen, Jamie.”

Finally his eyes met hers. Wide. Frantic.

“But it *could* have, Claire. And God help me, I was there standing in that stream, hearing Brianna try to make sense of what the girl was telling her – and all I could see was wee Fergus on his knees and Jack FUCKING Randall behind him, sneering at me in Paris.”

The pulse in his neck throbbed – his hands all clammy, his mind locked in terrible memories.

“I’m taking you upstairs.” Claire gripped Jamie’s hand and attempted to drag him toward the curtain. But he wouldn’t budge – and instead sank on his knees to the floor.

Eyes shining with tears.

“God help me, Claire – why are men such…such monsters to women? Just listening to Frances, and listening to Brianna trying to reassure her…”

He slammed his fist on the floorboards he had so lovingly and carefully crafted. The few precious glass jars on the table rattled.

“Damn it, Claire, she was being such a good sister to the wee girl, and Randall ROBBED her of her sister. Of…” His voice shook. “Of our Faith.”

Shocked into silence, Claire reacted purely by instinct. Kneeling before Jamie – opening her arms, allowing him to drop his head into her shoulder, his arms squeezing her so, so tight, her neck hot with his tears.

“I’m here,” she whispered over and over, slipping one hand under his shirt to caress his back – skin on skin, touching the scars Randall had given him so many lifetimes ago, making it impossible for him to think of that day without feeling here healing touch on him.

Outside in the dooryard, Ian called to Roger. Mandy sang a song to Esmerelda. A blue jay tittered from somewhere high up in a fir tree.

“WE are here, Jamie,” she murmured against his temple. “WE are safe. WE have survived.”

“I love you, Claire.”

“Hush. I love you, Jamie. I’m here.”

“God, if ye’d never come back to me…” he shuddered.

“Don’t think about that. Just think about here, right now. We are together. Stronger. Yes?”

“Aye.”

“And we treasure what we have because of what we have endured. What we have survived.”

Then he stood, and pulled back a bit. Looking at her.

“You are the joy of my life, Claire.”

How her heart soared with love for this man. For what he had done for her – would do for her.

“Take me upstairs?” she asked quietly. “I need time with you.”

He reached for her right hand – the hand that miraculously still bore the ring he’d had made for her, all those years ago – and kissed it reverently.

“We have all the time in the world, do we not, my Sassenach?”

Then he quickly crossed the room, and held back the curtain for her, and together they raced up the stairs, eager to make time stop.


End file.
